


That He Didn't Already Have

by SegaBarrett



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Oz Magi 2018, Wizard of Oz fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27630575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Prompt: "Characters from our Oz find themselves in L. Frank Baum's version of Oz. The premise suggests something humorous, but I'd be happy with anything. Something angsty or a horror fic could be interesting, too!"
Relationships: Tobias Beecher/Chris Keller
Kudos: 3
Collections: Oz Magi





	That He Didn't Already Have

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vanillalime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillalime/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Oz, and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: Title from "Tin Man" by America

“Did you hear that?”

It must have been three or four in the morning, though there was no clock within view of any of the inmates of the Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary.

“Here what, Chris?” Tobias Beecher asked, rubbing his eyes and wishing Chris hadn’t woken him up.

“It’s an alarm.”

And Toby had to agree with that, to his chagrin, as a shrieking sound.

“What the fuck?” He heard someone yell.

Toby clapped his hands over his ears and tried to crawl back under his mattress to escape the sound.

Next, he heard the sounds of guards rushing this way and that, mumbling to one another inaudibly.

“We should make a break for it.” That was Claire Howell’s voice. “Get to the cellar, or get to the nearest building…”

“What about the inmates?” a voice that Toby couldn’t immediately place.

“Screw them!” Howell yelled back. “We don’t have time for that shit. They’ll be fine. Cells and shit.”

The next thing Toby heard, and felt, was the ground shifting under him and rising off the ground, gliding. It was like Toby was back on an airplane, something he never thought he would feel again.

“Chris?” he called. The other man must have slid to the other side of the cell, because he couldn’t see him. It was only darkness.

Light came streaming into his eyes. It had been a long time since he had seen light, real light, and it hurt his eyes and made his head swell.

He began to crawl forward, towards the light, making his way towards it on his belly and, at last, out through the crack. Where was Chris? Was he alive?

He pulled himself through and found himself standing up and leaning down, peeking, yelling, “Chris!” again.

“You killed her!” a voice exclaimed, and Toby whirled around.

There were a number of men standing there, arms locked in side by side, who Toby somewhat recognized but couldn’t have named.

“You killed the Wicked Guard of the East,” one of the men informed him. “She was a real bitch.”

“…I don’t know who the Wicked Guard of the East is,” Toby spoke up, “And I didn’t mean to kill anyone…”

Though there was one man at the very top of his list, if he had to.

“Well, your house did.”

“It’s not a house,” Toby explained, “It’s a cell. There was a tornado warning and then I don’t…”

“It doesn’t matter! Bitch is dead!”

“Listen, I need to get back and find Chris… I don’t know what happened to him, but…” Toby trailed off. He wasn’t sure exactly what was happening here, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

He started to look around him, finding that he was standing next to a road that was made out of yellow brick, and that the world around him seemed very bright, painfully so.

“Who is this Chris, you speak of?” one of the men asked. Now that Toby paid attention to it, they all seemed much shorter than he would have expected.

“He’s my…” Toby was at a loss for how he could describe who Chris was to him. He loved him, he was his worst enemy – he had hurt him in ways Toby had never thought he could be hurt. But he couldn’t leave him alone in a tornado. The idea of Chris crushed under a bolder was almost too much to bear. “He’s important to me. I need to find him.”

“Well, maybe you can go to the wizard,” the man suggested, “He should be able to help you find your friend. He can do anything.”

Toby felt a bit suspicious of this promise about the wizard, but he figured that he needed to do whatever he could to help Chris. After all, Chris had had people killed for him, the least he could do was hunt him down and make sure he hadn’t been crushed.

He began to walk along, still finding it hard to see with all of the bright colors and flowers spurting up around him. He wondered if someone had slipped something in his drink – maybe it had been Adebisi by accident during one of his wild cell parties.

There was, suddenly, the sound of someone whispering in the wind. At least, it sounded like whispering, or perhaps it was only regular speaking that was very far away. Toby couldn’t tell where it was, until he realized that it seemed to be coming from a fence at the far side of a wide, green field.

There was a Scarecrow perched upon the fence in what looked like a very uncomfortable position. Upon further review, the Scarecrow also looked familiar.

“Can… you… take… me… down?” he drawled out.

“Cyril?” Toby asked, scratching his head. How had he gotten here?

“Can you take me down?” Cyril asked again, a small whine making its way into his voice. He waved his hands and looked desperately at Toby, who stepped forward.

“Let me just…” he reached over and put his hands on Cyril’s sides, lifting him up and off the fence. “How did you even get up there, Cyril? Did you get thrown during the tornado?”

“Tornado?” Cyril asked, “And who is Cyril? Is that my name… I never had a name before. I thought I was just a big piece of straw. I think the farmer only made me yesterday – thank you for saving me!”

“Well, I was going to go to find this wizard so I can get back home… did you want to come with me? I don’t even know where we’re going.”

“Neither do I… I forget everything. I was only made yesterday, though. Maybe the wizard can help me to remember things and be smart. I want to be smart… wait, what was your name again? I didn’t remember.”

“Tobias. Beecher. I didn’t tell you before.”

“Oh, that’s why I didn’t know! I’m so dumb. I feel like everyone tells me I’m dumb… but I don’t know who could have, since I was only made yesterday.”

They began to walk along the road, with Cyril continuing his internal monologue, until they came to the edge of the forest and found themselves looking at a statue, inexplicably standing hunched over in front of the forest.

“Oil me.”

Where the hell had that voice come from, and why did it sound like…

“Chris?” Toby called, desperately, thinking he must be making it up in his head, now. He had to have hit his head in the tornado and now this was what was going in his dying moments or something.

“Please... oil... me...” came the groan from the statue.

Toby gasped. It sounded just like Chris, but how could that be? Chris was back at rye prison... either waiting for him or having found something else to do after assuming Toby was dead. And he still wasn’t sure that that wasn’t a distinct possibility.

“My oil can... seriously... right there... lube me up,” Not-Chris grunted, and Toby ran to fetch the can as Not-Cyril stared at them, confused.

Toby poured the oil over the statue, paying particular attention to his armpits and elbows.

The statue stood up with a long sigh.

“I must have been there for years, just rusting more and more each day, waiting.”

Toby thought of the man they had found buried in the wall and shuddered.

“Why are you... tin?” He asked, to change the subject.

“I fell in love, and was turned to tin because I’m not supposed to love anyone. I used to lure men off and kill them, and my last victim went to the Wicked Witch and enchanted my knife that the next time I cut something, I would cut off each of my own limbs. They were replaced by tin. I fell in love once but I can’t remember who because I don’t have a heart to love him. Him? Maybe him. Or maybe her. If might have been the Munchkin girl I married twice...”

Toby wanted to remind Chris that he was the one he loved, but what if he wasn’t? And if he couldn’t remember, there really wasn’t any point in telling him.

“Maybe the Wizard can give you a heart, and then you will remember!” Cyril said eagerly, “I’m going to ask him for a brain.”

“I want to do that - do you think the wizard will do that? Give me a heart? It’s lonely without a heart.... I think. I don’t remember what it’s like.”

“I’m sure he can,” Toby said, though he really wasn’t sure. They continue along until, suddenly, they all heard an awful roar and turned to a large, all-white lion.

“Let’s shoot it!” the tin Chris yelled, despite not having a gun. “That seems to be the logical conclusion here.”

The lion tilted its mane up to look at Toby, and he immediately recognized his eyes, the eyes that had looked down at him as he had taken a bite out of him where it mattered.

“Robson,” Toby accused, and the lion shied away with a little yelp as Toby hit him squarely in his big furry nose. Of all the people he wanted to run into here, Robson was close to being last on the list.

“You’re scary!” the lion declared. “Why did you hit me?”

“Because you’re an asshole!”

The lion whimpered again.

“I wish I had the courage to stand up to you, but I don’t…”

Toby looked at the broken gaze in the lion’s eyes and sighed.

“Are you going to the Wizard to ask for courage?”

“Could I? I wish that I could stand up and be a leader… But I can’t.”

Toby shrugged and continued on the road until they found themselves at a city that was on the other edge of the forest.

He saw a sign that indicated they were entering the Emerald City, and were instructed to put on glasses “so they would not be blinded by how radiant it was.”

They went in line to visit the Wizard.

“You are going to have to fill out this stack of forms,” they instructed.

Three hours later, they found themselves before the Wizard, each making their requests.

The Wizard leaned back in his chair and told each of them that the only way they would get what they needed to kill the Wicked Witch of the West in order to be granted their wishes.

When they walked back out of the Emerald City, there was suddenly another gust of wind. Toby grabbed Chris’ waist and held him tight. He wouldn’t let him go, not again.

The Wicked Witch had them in her clutches, and he didn’t know what to do… If only he could click his heels together, but his feet felt like they were full of clay –

***

“Beecher. Beecher, come back to us.”

He felt a gentle touch on his forehead and as he opened his eyes, he saw a silver halo around Sister Pete.

“Chris,” he mumbled, trying desperately to sit up.

“Keller’s fine,” Sister Pete told him. “He’s recovering in another room. You both got pretty thrown by the tornado. The state is investigating our disaster preparedness plan…”

“And Cyril and Robson? They were there…”

“Both fine, as far as I know. Cyril is doing some reading in the library, since it’s pretty untouched. And Robson… is off on his own doing some contemplation. I’m very surprised.”

Robson finally stood up to Vern, Toby mused. And Cyril is learning…

Did Chris have a heart?

And he’d never killed the Wicked Witch of the West.

“Well, I’ll be right back, let me grab you some water,” Sister Pete said, shuffling out of the room. Toby let his hands drop into his lap with a sigh. He had to see Chris, to tell him everything he had seen in his dream. What could it mean?

Without a rap on the door, the door flew open. He heard the cackle first, and then, he was sure, a flash of green.

“What have we hear?”

The voice of Clare Howell.

Toby reached down and curled his hand around the side of a water bucket.

The things he was about to do for love.

There was no place like home.


End file.
